Hooly got the call to appear on Deal or No Deal the morning of my birthday (She was later ruled ineligible), so I took down my birthday avatar to put up this quickly thrown together one of her picking ES's favorite case. The artwork on this one is nothing short of hideous.

This was the avatar I drew for the callback days from the Primetime revival phone game, and had up for each of the 3 callback days. It was inspired by the continual teasing I got from Hooly that she still had her old cheerleading uniform.

I am pretty sure the bidet came up in chat, and I even think I drew this as I was in chat. Anyway, ES is using the bidet as a drinking fountain.

Characters: ES, MBRS

Reference thread: None

#58. "Classy Bitch"

Debuted: 7/23/09

In chat the previous night, Hooly had us all taking stupid Facebook quizzes. While I can't remember what the exact quiz was for this one, we both got the result "Classy Bitch", which produced a picture which this avatar was based on. This avatar is so dead on in both a complimentary and derogitory way to Hooly.

Probably my favorite Hooly-based avatar based on combined artistic talent and significance. This avatar was drawn to show my support of Hooly as the Bored began to turn against her for our constant flooding of the Bored with our idle conversations. I mentioned in my countdown blurb how much I love both the terrified look on ES's face, as well as the brave, resigned to her fate look on Hooly's. I didn't realize at the time that I drew it that this was basically our final stand on the Bored together. The end of the Hooly era was nigh.

The day before, vandal posted his "Sling Bored" promo for Fanny's Decades game, and it featured a scene where the Uly Childers managed to murder both me and Hooly with a bottle of Evenly Gorgeous. Hooly mentioned that it's bad enough EG clogs her drain, now she gets murdered by it, and the poop hit the fan when christie responded. In the afternath, this avatar of Hooly's real shower drain problems was created, though I did have to include a bottle of Evenly Gorgeous in the picture.

One of the last episodes of the Hooly era was when she decided on the spur of the moment to cash in her show winnings to buy a car. The car depicted in the avatar was drawn from a photo she posted of a similar car to the one she was buying, a 2002 red Saab convertible.

After attending the WWTBAM taping on August 5, Hooly would disappear from the Bored altogether for 2 weeks. However, I had sent her a message 4 days prior, one she wasn't responding to, and I drew this as a subtle hint that i was being ignored. She was never around to see it, but at least I have the artistic merit of this one to smile about. I am happy with how well I pulled off the see-through ES effect.

Characters: ES

Reference thread: None

#63. "Howl at the Moon"

Debuted: 8/8/09

This was an avatar spawned by a conversation me and Beebs had in chat the night before, as we were brainstorming ideas for the squirrel painting I had been trying to get her to do. A squirrel howling at the moon was one of the ideas we settled on. This avatar impressed me quite a bit for the time period I did it in.

Odyssey came to chat the night before and, not really knowing me, seemed to assume I lived in California. I made up this avatar the next morning, and dubbed her my new avatar maven during Hooly's absence.

The avatar I drew for Hooly's birthday, which accompanied a thread full of "gifts" I made for her in return for what she did in my birthday thread a month earlier. The avatar plays off the fact that me and her are the same age. If she ever saw this avatar or the birthday thread, she never acknowledged it.

Sprots used the term "teabaggers" in a thread regarding the Tea Party, not realizing the term had a more condescending and sexually explicit meaning (I admit to being unaware of it as well). I drew this avatar the next night/morning to go with my rankings, which I dubbed the "Tea for Two" edition. The seemingly glum faces on ES and MBRS were actually intentionally drawn, more to show apathy with slight befuddlement over what the big deal was, as was my take on the whole "teabagger" uproar.

When USA Today did a story on the WWTBAM primetime revival special, they chose to use a picture of mikehardware in the Hot Seat as their front page teaser for the story. Seeing that, I drew my own ES newspaper interpretation of mike's win. Of course, I couldn't help but get in a lamenting of Hooly's absence as well.

This blank avatar was uploaded by me without any explanation. It was not only done because Hooly had not posted in 2 weeks at the time, but largely it was a follow-up to "The Invisible Squirrel" avatar, and represented the feeling of abandonment I was experiencing. Since Hooly had become such a fixture of my avatars, I vowed to myself to leave the blank up and not create a new one until she came back. Fortunately, I didn't have to wait long. Other times I have used the blackout avatar: In October 2011 after my frustration with the Cardinals kopykat Rally Squirrel reached a boiling point after the Texas Rangers choked away their chance to defeat the Cardinals in Game 6 of the World Series. On January 18, 2012 as part of the internet wide blackout protest against the anti-piracy bills PIPA and SOPA that were being considered in Congress.

Having heard from Hooly the day before, but her still staying away from the Bored, I signified my somewhat more upbeat outlook by having ES peel away and peek through a corner of the blank avatar. I thought this was a cute play on what by far was my most depressing avatar.

In one of our threads that got carried away, I invited Odyssey to have dinner with me at McDonalds. After being repulsed by the idea of eating at Mickey Dee's, the conversation somehow got steered to having dinner on the rooftop, and it was this scene that ES immortalized in avatar form. It would be the third and final appearance by Odyssey in an avatar during her brief tenure as ES's avatar obsession, but it is one of my favorites from the entire year. It is also the very reason I would later name one of my cats Ody in her honor due to the pink paw pads on Odyssey's character in this avatar. It was all I could envision when Ody would roll over and expose his own pink paw pads.

When Hooly did come back to the Bored, she came back with a vengeance.... and the only thing she seemed interested in talking about was the "big surprise" that made the final episode of the WWTBAM revival a must-see, and that she was there to witness it. As it turns out, the big surprise was Ken Basin going for the million dollar question, about which soft drink LBJ had a button to order in the Oval Office, and missing it.

Characters: ES, Hooly

Reference thread: None

#73. "You Never Bring Me Flowers"

Debuted: 8/26/09

The same night the final episode of WWTBAM aired, my aunt died and I was not on the Bored or in chat as I usually am during the evening. While several people noticed my absence, I made a comment about how only "some people" noticed I was gone, and it sent Hooly flying off the handle. Bereft over what had happened, I one-upped my previous blank avatar and reverted back to the classic avatar of ES painting the picture of Annie for a couple days. In an effort to extend an olive branch, I then did this avatar, which I was extremely happy about from an artistic point of view. It was one of my best early uses of an odd perspective, and I was sure it would be noticed by someone. It wasn't. The Hooly era had officially ended.

Characters: ES

Reference thread: None

#74. "Stray Cat Strut"

Debuted: 8/28/09

The previous evening, I encountered a stray cat in front of the bingo hall and took a few minutes to stop and pet it. I made the mistake of mentioning this in chat that night, and my harem decided to put the pressure on me to get a cat. This was the first avatar inspired by that, showing ES being nuzzled on by a stray black cat.

Another avatar symbolizing the pressure being put on me to bring a kitty or two into my life, featuring two of the main culprits in the plot, SC and Kiki, as well as a take on the picture Fanny posted to try to break me down of her cat Mariah with a Nintendo controller.